Major League Gaming releases the full details of their StarCraft II Winter Season.

With the release of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm coming on March 12, eSports organisations and players alike have started to make the switch from Wings of Liberty to the new expansion. Today eSports goliath Major League Gaming has finally detailed their plans for their Tenth Annual Winter Season, which will feature Heart of the Swarm.

The Winter Season will conclude in Dallas at the MLG Winter Championships on March 15-17, and as we already know will not include open qualifiers, instead MLG has come up with a new format. The new format will see 56 of the best StarCraft II players play an invite-only best of 5 Winter Season Showdown match each, the winners will qualify for the Winter Championships.

The Online Winter Season Showdowns will take place between “February 4-March 8: 28 Matches, 28 Days broadcast each weekday at 5pm ET and select Sundays” on MLG.tv and twitch.tv.

The Broadcast schedule follows:

Monday, 2/4: Parting vs Fantasy

Tuesday, 2/5: Roro vs Hero

Wednesday, 2/6: Innovation vs Ty

Thursday, 2/7: Soulkey vs Last

Friday, 2/8: Rain vs Flying

Sunday, 2/10: Sase vs Snute

Monday, 2/11: Nerchio vs BabyKnight

Tuesday, 2/12: Stephano vs Titan

Wednesday, 2/13: Mana vs Bly

Thursday, 2/14: Socke vs Thorzain

Friday, 2/15: Ret vs Feast

Broadcast dates for the following matchups will be announced soon:

Grubby vs Dimaga

Sen vs Moonglade

MC vs Alive

Taeja vs Violet

Hero vs Polt

Creator vs Nestea

Mvp vs Curious

Sniper vs Seed

MarineKing vs Gumiho

DongRaeGu vs Jjakji

Scarlett vs Goswser

Idra vs Ddoro

Fenix vs State

Vibe vs Illusion

Suppy vs Maker

Killer vs Qxc

Huk vs Sasquatch

The player pool is comprised of the following: 10 KeSPA players competing for 5 spots, 10 ESF players competing for 5 spots, 6 Western or Independent Korean Players competing for 3 spots, 14 North American players competing for 7 spots, 7 European players competing for 7 spots and 2 SEA players competing for 1 spot.

The map pool for the Winter Season Showdowns:

Akilon Wastes

Bifrost

Cloud Kingdom

Daybreak

Entombed Valley

Korhal City

Newkirk City

Ohana

Planet S

Star Station

Whirlwind

This is a mix of new maps form Heart of the Swarm and maps from Wings of Liberty. In addition, “each Showdown, both Players will veto three Maps. The Map Pool will be trimmed down to seven for the Exhibition Tournament at the Winter Championship.”

The 28 winners from the Winter Showdowns will be joined in Dallas by Life, Leenock, Flash and Bomber – the top 4 from the 2012 Winter Season. The Winter Championships will be a 32-Player Single Elimination Bracket (Bo5s & 7s), all 31 matches will be broadcast from the main stage and feature stage.

The prize-pool for the Championships in Dallas will be split as follows: